President Donald Trump put Iran back in the penalty box on Tuesday — but the impact on the oil market could be determined by how China responds.

China, a voracious consumer of oil, holds great sway because it’s Iran’s biggest customer. Almost one-third of Iranian oil shipments this year have gone to China, according to energy research firm Genscape.

Countering recent US sanctions and President Trump’s talk of ending the “bad” nuclear agreement with Iran, Iran’s president threatened to restart its nuclear program. If his threat is true as stated, he unwittingly admitted something highly supportive of Trump’s position:

Mr. Rouhani said that a reconstituted nuclear program would be “far more advanced,” a veiled threat that the country could start enriching uranium up to the level of 20 percent…. “Iran will definitely revert to a far more advanced situation than it had before the negotiations, not in a matter of weeks or months but in a matter of days or hours.” (New York Times)